


Thirteen Moments We Didn't See

by flaming_muse



Category: Glee
Genre: Episode Related, Fluff, Gap Filler, M/M, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-26
Updated: 2015-02-26
Packaged: 2018-03-15 06:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3437342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flaming_muse/pseuds/flaming_muse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thirteen moments for Kurt and Blaine we didn’t see in Glee 6x08.</p><p>set throughout 6x08 (“A Wedding”), with absolutely no spoilers beyond</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thirteen Moments We Didn't See

**Author's Note:**

> After a week filled with travel, jet lag, emotional spiraling, and food poisoning, I present you with nearly seven thousand words of Klaine moments we didn’t see in 6x08. It is utter self-indulgence, but I hope it makes you smile. I am delighted to be able to write the boys being happy again.
> 
> [[also in Spanish!](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11076413/1/Thirteen-Moments-We-Didn-t-See)]

1.

 

This time kissing Blaine feels like coming home, no matter that they’re in the apartment that was Blaine’s home with Dave, surrounded by boxes and rainbow colors and memories of another man. This time touching Blaine feels safe, Blaine’s hands on Kurt and his arms around Blaine’s shoulders with love they both are able and happy to express.

This time being together finally feels _right_ , because Blaine wants him, and he wants Blaine, and there’s nothing to stop them anymore.

There’s no hesitation. There’s no holding back. There’s only the two of them at last.

Kurt slides his hands over Blaine’s back and smiles even more into the kiss, squeezing his eyes shut against the wave of relief that hits him so strongly it feels like it could take his feet right out from under him. But he has Blaine to hold on to once more; he’ll never fall again.

Their mouths part, and Blaine pulls him in more tightly, tucking his cheek against Kurt’s jaw where it fits so perfectly. Kurt soaks up the faint scratch of Blaine’s whiskers against his skin and the strength in Blaine’s shoulders where Kurt curls around them, draws new memories and familiar touches into him like a fresh lungful of air.

“Kurt,” Blaine breathes out, barely audible, and Kurt can’t quite read his tone. He thinks it’s good - he _knows_ it is; he can feel it in the reverent way Blaine is touching him - but he just has to be sure.

“You know this isn’t just about the wedding, right?” Kurt says, the words tumbling out in a rush. “You know I’m not just asking you on a date.”

Blaine’s squeak of a laugh is wet and so intensely fond that that wave of relief crashes against Kurt again. Blaine lifts his head and looks at him with shining, happy eyes. “I know that,” he says. “I know.”

Kurt wants to fall into those eyes, ones that haven’t looked at him like that in _so long_ , but he finds himself nodding like a fool instead. “I just... I love you. I want to be clear.”

“I know,” Blaine says more softly. “I love you, too.”

Kurt can _see_ the truth of that love in Blaine’s eyes again, with no conflict, no anger, nothing held back, and Kurt’s smile wobbles out of him even more brightly.

Blaine smiles back at him, something like delight beneath it, and he presses another kiss to Kurt’s mouth, soft but utterly certain. Kurt sighs into it and leans against him as Blaine runs his hands up Kurt’s back again, like he wants to re-memorize him, too.

“You’re shaking... and kind of sweaty,” Blaine says with concern. “Are you okay?”

“I ran here,” Kurt says and shakes his head. He still feels a little jittery and desperate with the remnants of his panic that no matter how Kurt felt or what he said Blaine might not want him, but even more he feels grounded for the first time in what feels like forever, because Blaine didn’t say no. Blaine said yes. Blaine wants _him_. “It doesn’t matter.”

He curls his arms around Blaine’s shoulders and draws him in, smiling against his warm skin before searching for his mouth again. “Everything’s perfect.”

 

2.

The morning of Brittany and Santana’s wedding, Blaine feels a distinct sense of déjà vu when he walks up the steps of Kurt’s house in the early morning quiet. He’s been here so many times before, in happy times and sad, picking up Kurt for dates, coming over for family dinners, checking on Burt, helping with Finn’s funeral, having movie nights and baking parties and rehearsals and study sessions.

There have been times in his life when Blaine has felt more at home at the Hummel-Hudson house than at his own. He used to feel like all of the love he needed in the world lived right behind this very front door. He used to feel like joining this family was the only thing he needed to be happy.

He takes a breath as he rings the bell and reminds himself that things are different now. He’s back together with Kurt, and that makes him so _incredibly_ happy, but being welcomed through this door isn’t an automatic promise of everything in his life being perfect.

He thinks it’s good that he knows that. Life is a lot bigger and more complicated than he used to understand, but he’s figuring it out. It feels good to know that there is no such thing as perfection and that happiness isn’t one big thing but lots of little things together.

Still, as he dusts the toe of his shoe against the porch, Blaine wants to be welcomed.

So much has happened between Kurt and him, so much pain and time apart, that he hopes Kurt’s parents will still want to welcome him. He hopes he can prove to them that this time they’re going to be smart. They’re going to do this right.

He hopes it won’t be too awkward.

Footsteps come toward the door, and he can tell from the way they’re shuffling like in slippers that they aren’t Kurt’s. Blaine lifts his chin, puts a smile on his face, and wishes he’d put his tie on instead of leaving it with his tuxedo jacket in the garment bag in the car. He’d like to make the best impression he can.

Carole opens the door wrapped in a thick pink bathrobe with her hair askew and a steaming cup of coffee in her hand.

“Good morning,” Blaine says as she steps back to let him in. “I know it’s early for guests, but Kurt asked me to pick him up so we can go help with the last of the preparations for the big day.”

“Oh, you’re not a guest, honey,” Carole says, leaning in to kiss his cheek, as simple as that. “You’re never a guest. Don’t be silly.”

“Is that Blaine?” Kurt calls from upstairs, and Blaine’s right back in high school on a Friday night, waiting with dazzled excitement to go out to dinner with his amazing boyfriend. Yet he’s also here, older, wiser, maybe a little more clear-eyed but still madly in love with the amazing man he’d thought he’d lost for good but who is somehow his again. “I’ll be right down!”

“He just started doing his hair,” Carole tells Blaine with a knowing smile. “You know that’ll be at least ten minutes. Maybe fifteen, because he knows there will be pictures.”

Blaine laughs his agreement. She’s completely right, of course.

Being back together with Kurt might be new, but in a way it’s not new at all.

He blinks at the hall around him, slightly different than it used to be but somehow still just as much home as it once was. It’s like his favorite book, lost for a while but found left open just where he’d left it. He knows a few months ago he wouldn’t have considered his life to be going well, but now, even with all that’s happened, he doesn’t know how he’s been so lucky in it to have gone through everything he has and find himself here.

Carole puts her hand on his arm. “Come have some coffee,” she offers. “Burt’ll want to say hi, even if he’s grumbly before he finishes his first cup. Remember not to take it personally.”

“I remember. Thank you,” Blaine says around the lump in his throat, and he can’t help but smile as he follows her to the kitchen.

Even if he knows being welcomed by Kurt’s family isn’t all he needs to be happy it almost feels better to have it now. He isn’t desperate for it; he just _loves_ it.

Having it be a part of his life again is a gift.

 

3.

Once Sugar has taken their picture, Kurt sets down the pitchfork on the grass with a little grimace. “I think I have manure on my hands,” he says, looking down at the dirt that has appeared on them. “I can’t believe you wanted me to touch that.”

Blaine’s eyebrows rise in obvious surprise at the accusation as he lets out a little laugh. He turns from smiling at Sam and Tina taking yet another selfie. “You’re the one who ran over saying, ‘Ooh, American Gothic!’”

“If it gets on my jacket, I’m not sure even my well-stocked bridal emergency kit is going to get it out,” Kurt grumbles and tries to dust his hands off, but they don’t come clean. He holds them well away from his clothes.

“It’s just some dirt,” Blaine says, glancing down at them with a slight hesitation in his voice, barely enough for Kurt to catch it. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

Kurt can remember what it felt like to let his temper run free, one annoyance feeding into another until everything bothered him, even a comment as mild as Blaine not immediately being on his side. It was like being swept up in a wildfire; the burn was cleansing for him, but it singed everything near it.

He knows he will burn again, because that his passions can run hot is not something he would change about himself even if he could, but he hopes he has a better idea of how to control it now.

Today, though, Kurt can only smile. He doesn’t feel any need to let his spark of annoyance light. He knows Blaine’s not actually arguing, just trying in his own optimistic way to help. He’s missed every part of Blaine, even the traits that can rub him the wrong way sometimes. “The things I do for a good picture,” he says with a self-deprecating sigh.

Blaine smiles back at him, that little hint of worry at the edges of his eyes vanishing in a flash, and he gestures toward the brides’ dressing rooms. “Come on,” he says, happy to be helpful as always. “Let’s find you some running water.”

 

4.

It should be weirder being at a wedding that isn’t theirs, Blaine thinks as he and Kurt come to stand to look out over the barn and all of its beautiful decorations. He thinks he should be feeling regrets for the wedding _they_ didn’t have, the one he’d been dragging Kurt through planning before they’d broken up, the one they would have already had. He thinks he should feel the loss of it more sharply than just the awareness of a path not taken.

Kurt slides his hand over top of his on top of the railing, connecting them together, and Blaine smiles over at him.

Maybe it should be weird or painful to be here, but it isn’t. Not really.

Blaine feels oddly content, as warm and steady inside as Kurt’s hand is where it rests on top of his.

They’ve made mistakes, but like Burt and Carole said everyone does. They’ve fought and failed and fallen, but they’ve gotten back up again. They could have taken a different path, but this is the one they’re on.

Blaine sighs out and takes in the beautiful sight around them and the even more beautiful man by his side. He can’t quite tell where his hand starts and Kurt’s begins. This is where he belongs; he feels that truth deep into the sure center of his soul, a place that never used to be sure of himself at all. This is where his heart is, with Kurt. Being with him can’t feel anything but right.

What got them here doesn’t matter as much as just them being together again.

 

5.

“But,” Kurt prompts Blaine, his heart pounding in his throat. “But what?”

Blaine shrugs again, looking agonized and desperate and almost _sad_ in a way Kurt doesn’t quite understand. “I know we rushed the last time. I don’t want to make the same mistakes, but Kurt... I can’t pretend that I don’t still want to be with you forever. I can’t tell you I don’t want to marry you. I do.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t have to be today. I know that. But I can’t tell you I don’t _want_ to.”

Staring at him, Kurt knows this is the tipping point, right here, right this minute. It doesn’t matter how they got here. It doesn’t matter who is in the room with them. What matters is the man in front of him, whose heart is full of love for _him_ in a way Kurt had thought he’d lost for good.

Kurt knows he can brush this opportunity off a hundred different ways, and someday they’ll get married anyway, but as easy and as smart as that would probably be, he knows it’s even more important to be honest with Blaine. He has to be.

He takes a little breath, willing his voice to stay steady, and squeezes Blaine’s hands. “When I came back to Lima for you,” he says, “I came back for all of you. I came back for forever. We’ve never just dated, and even though we just got back together, I don’t think we’re just dating now.”

“No,” Blaine agrees in a ragged whisper. “And I love you, too. So much. I always have. But this is crazy. Right?”

“Maybe,” Kurt says, and he knows it is. “But it’s us.”

Blaine nods with a laugh that doesn’t quite sound happy.

“You’re the love of my life, Blaine,” Kurt tells him, and Blaine’s face crumples in joy and unshed tears. His fingers clutch tightly at Kurt’s. “That isn’t going to change in a week or a month or a year. What I want with you isn’t going to change, either. I want forever with you. I need you to know that. What we do, how we do it... those are just details.”

Blaine’s eyes squeeze shut for a second, and he looks miserable and thrilled all at once.

“Do you _want_ to marry me?” Kurt makes himself ask. He can barely believe he’s saying the words, and yet they don’t feel wrong at all. He _knows_ what he wants. He knows what he came back for. He didn’t come back to win Blaine’s heart just for a little while; he came back to get it forever. He came back to jump in again in the deep end, not start all over. Maybe this wasn’t the deep end he imagined, but here they are at the edge of it. “Today? Right now? Like this?”

“Do you?” Blaine asks him, searching his eyes with hope he can’t quite hide.

Kurt knows that look. He knows what it looks like when Blaine wants something but thinks he shouldn’t. He knows what it looks like when Blaine is trying to deny himself. He knows all too well what it looks like when Blaine is trying to convince himself to make a smart choice alone instead of the right choice together.

Kurt knows Blaine, and Kurt knows his own heart.

He has dreamed of his wedding since he was a boy, has played dress-up with dolls and made scrapbooks and filled a hope chest with plans and dreams, and as he stands here in this drafty barn filled with decorations he didn’t pick and guests he doesn’t know, he just can’t care about any of those ideas of his youth.

He’s dreamed of a thousand weddings over the years, but the only thing he could never have imagined is what it truly feels like to be so in love with someone with all of his heart, nothing held back, and that’s the most important thing of all.

He knows his heart isn’t going to change. He knows there are storms ahead, but he also knows they can weather them. Getting married isn’t a question of if; it’s a question of when, if life allows. And life, like he knows all too well, is short and capricious.

Fortune might not actually favor the brave, but if everything in life is a risk then the least Kurt can do is reach toward what he wants instead of hold back. It’s the only way he’s ever gotten anything he wants. And he absolutely wants Blaine.

“You’re the love of my life,” Kurt says again, not able to keep his smile from pouring out of him. He doesn’t even try. “And I think it’s my turn to ask.”

Blaine’s hands tighten on his in surprise. “Really?” He looks stunned but not at all afraid, and that’s enough for Kurt.

Kurt’s smile goes crooked, his heart pounds, and he can’t look away from Blaine’s increasingly radiant face. “You got to propose last time. It’s only fair.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Sue says in triumph beside them.

Kurt doesn’t even spare her a glance. “If you interject one more time into this moment, I will sneak into your house and secretly tailor every single one of your track suits to bind, pinch, ride up, or itch in different and terrible places.”

Sue raises her hands and takes a step back. “Understood.”

Blaine’s eyes have crinkled with laughter and deep appreciation, and he pulls Kurt toward him with a gentle tug, one tiny step closer that makes the rest of the world fade away again.

It’s only them, two people in love.

It doesn’t matter how it’s happening, but _that_ it’s happening.

“Blaine, will you marry me?” Kurt asks him softly, as sure of the answer as he is of the sun rising in the east.

“Yes,” Blaine replies with an impossibly bright smile, and Kurt can barely hear the cheers of Brittany and Santana over the riotous joy of his own heart.

 

6.

Blaine’s hands don’t shake as he ties the bowtie at his throat. His heartbeat is steady. His palms are cool and sweat-free.

He feels like he ought to be nervous. He feels like he ought to be doubting himself. He always used to doubt himself, even about Kurt, whether he could be what Kurt wanted and needed, whether he was enough.

But he knows he’s enough, not because Kurt wants to marry him - although it’s kind of amazing and dizzying to find himself in that position again - but because Kurt knows him and wants what he knows. Kurt wants _him_.

Kurt wants to marry _him_. Today. Right now. For real. Forever.

Oh, god, Kurt wants to marry him.

Blaine swallows around the lump of relief and disbelief and amazement in his throat and tries to get his tie straight.

Kurt knows him and wants him. It means Blaine’s enough for him, just by being himself. He doesn’t have to do anything more.

All he had to do was say yes, and that was the easiest thing in the world to do. Saying no to forever with Kurt was never an option.

Blaine looks up from the reflection of his hands in the mirror to see Kurt slipping into the dressing room. He looks impossibly handsome in his new tuxedo, slim and tall and perfect, but it’s Kurt’s face that Blaine can’t look away from.

He doesn’t look nervous, either. Kurt - whose mind is always spinning a thousand miles a minute, who always has a hundred comments and criticisms ready on the tip of his tongue, who can barely sleep some nights for how much is going on in his head - looks _serene_. His shoulders are back, his chin is high, and his smile is totally unguarded.

“Let me,” Kurt says, and Blaine drops his hands and turns around so that Kurt can adjust his tie for him.

It’s such a simple thing, something Kurt’s done for him countless times before, and yet it fills Blaine’s heart that much more. It’s something Kurt is going to do for him for the rest of their lives. It’s something Kurt _wants_ to do for the rest of their lives.

There was a time not that long ago that Blaine hated that he still wanted Kurt so much after so much heartbreak, hated that his life had revolved around this one man and the workings of his heart and then suddenly didn’t anymore, but today all of the struggle to get his feet back under him after the break-up - if not actually his heart back, it turns out - finally works in his favor. It’s gotten them here, standing in front of each other both strong and certain, about to get married.

Blaine somehow is getting to _marry him_.

It’s crazy. It’s perfect. It’s worth every bit of hardship that got him here.

“It’s almost time. Are you ready for this?” Kurt asks him, glancing up from his hands for a moment, checking in.

“Yes,” Blaine says, drinking in the delicate fan of Kurt’s eyelashes and the soft pink of his lips and knowing they’re it for him. They’re all he wants to wake up to for the rest of his life. “Are you?”

Kurt tweaks Blaine’s tie, then brushes off his shoulders in a few neat motions. His ever-changing eyes are bright blue and as clear as the sky as they meet his straight on. “I’m ready,” he replies with just a hint of a grin, like he can’t believe it, either, and his hand is just as steady as Blaine’s as he reaches out to hold on to him as they head to their wedding.

 

7.

The ring is warm from being in Blaine’s pocket as Blaine slides it onto Kurt’s finger, slim in a way he isn’t used to but right all the same.

Kurt doesn’t know if it’s that warmth or the different weight than his engagement ring that makes it feel like his wedding ring belongs on his hand. He doesn’t know why it fits perfectly there or looks like it’s been there forever as Blaine anchors their hands together again.

All he knows is that the first ring Blaine put on his hand had felt welcome but foreign and strange, the start of a new adventure, and this one feels right from the moment it touches his skin.

All he knows is that seeing the matching band on Blaine’s hand makes it feel like this isn’t the start of something different but the fulfillment of everything they already were.

 

8.

As he stands with Brittany, Santana, and Kurt at the end of the aisle, back where this whole wedding started not that long ago but _so_ different now, Blaine looks out over the guests rising from their seats and gathering in a chattering rush to congratulate them. There are a lot of people he doesn’t know. There are a lot of faces he doesn’t see: Cooper, his dad, his favorite cousins, friends like the Warblers or Elliott.

It’s definitely not how he pictured his wedding. It’s not what they had planned the first time around.

But as he takes in Kurt beside him, lit up with a joy and peace Blaine almost doesn’t know how to believe is about _him_ , he realizes maybe it is. The most important thing is the man he just got to marry, after all, and that hasn’t changed.

“I can’t believe I got through that without crying,” Burt says to them, pulling Kurt into a hug. There are tears in his voice and in his eyes. “You boys - “ He breaks off and shakes his head. He opens up one arm and draws Blaine into the hug, too. It’s tight and warm, so easily affectionate, and Blaine closes his eyes and holds onto them both in return, glad he doesn’t have to speak because he’s not sure he could make a sound around the lump in his throat. “You’re not boys anymore, are you? Not kids. Married men.”

“Dad,” Kurt breathes, his voice going watery and overwhelmed.

Keeping his hands on their shoulders, Burt pulls back and looks at them both, serious and elated and maybe even proud. “You’re not a kid anymore, but you’re still my son, Kurt.” He looks right into Blaine’s eyes. “Both of you. My sons.”

Blaine doesn’t even know how to answer around the gratitude and joy swelling inside him - this happening, this is real, this dream he had for so long is _real_ \- and then he’s being kissed on the cheek by Carole and cried on by his mother and squeezed until it hurts by Tina and Rachel and lifted off his feet in a hug by Puck and kissed on the mouth by some old woman he hopes is related to Brittany or Santana, because judging by the straw in her hair she might have just been living in one of the hay bales.

But no matter how many times he’s kissed and hugged by people dear to him or complete strangers, Blaine can’t quite let go of the word _son_ in his ear.

He can’t quite stop himself from keeping his _husband_ in sight out of the corner of his eye.

No, he was wrong, he thinks as he greets another guest he’s never met before with Kurt at his side.

This is exactly the wedding he had pictured.

 

9.

“Okay,” Rachel says into the microphone, taking the stage with Mercedes. “It’s time for the brides and grooms to have their first dance!” She makes a little shooing motion at them.

“Do you know what song Santana decided on?” Kurt asks Blaine in a murmur as they get up from their little table and head down to the dance floor.

“I have no idea,” Blaine replies. “This morning she and Brittany still had a dozen options on their list, and Brit was saying something about the numerology of song titles and Celine Dion giving her the evil eye.”

Kurt can’t help but laugh. “I hope they picked something good. Can you imagine telling the story of our wedding in twenty years and having to admit to dancing to, I don’t know, Heidi Montag? I mean, you know how I feel about reality star pop singles, but at least pick a Real Housewife.”

Blaine’s steps slow just a hair, enough that Kurt notices - but then Kurt feels like he notices everything about him these days, every single wonderful bit of him - and he turns toward him with concern.

“Did they pick Heidi Montag?” Kurt asks with a tiny rush of panic. “You have to warn me if they did. I won’t be able to hide my dismay in the pictures if you don’t warn me. It’ll be immortalized forever.”

“No, I - “ Blaine blinks and shakes his head, like he’s pulling himself out of a dream. He looks up at Kurt with wonder etched across his face. “Twenty years, Kurt. We’re going to be telling this story together in twenty years. In fifty.”

Kurt’s chest clenches so painfully it’s almost akin to heartache, because he’d _lost_ this future, they both had, and now they have it again. He stops in the middle of the floor. It doesn’t matter if they _do_ have to dance to a song from a substandard reality star. They’ve found their way back to each other. They’re _married_. This is _it_. They’ve made it.

They’re going to be telling this story in _fifty years_.

Kurt knows the future won’t be free of ups and downs. They’ll argue, they’ll hurt each other, and they’ll make mistakes.

But despite how hard the past year has been, both as a couple and not, they’ve finally found a way to do it all together. He _knows_ they have. They’ll keep working until they do. It’s what they just promised to do for the rest of their lives, after all.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Kurt tells him, his voice high in his throat and his happiness almost too much to bear.

“Me, too.” Blaine smiles back with his heart shining in his eyes and steps forward. He lifts his hands as the music starts. “Would you like to lead?”

Kurt raises his own hands and fits himself into Blaine’s arms with a feeling of utter satisfaction, the first dance of so many they are going to have throughout their lives.

He lets Blaine draw him close with hands that always touch him like he is precious and says, “Next time.”

 

10.

“Oh, this is really good!” Kurt enthuses around a mouthful of wedding cake. “I’m so glad they went with the vanilla bean buttercream.” He leans his shoulder against the pillar they’re standing by and happily cuts himself another bite with his fork.

Blaine smiles as he chews on his own piece of cake, his heart full of more sweetness than the admittedly very delicious frosting. Kurt is always so appreciative of baked goods; Blaine’s missed seeing it. He’s glad he doesn’t have to miss anything about him anymore.

“Sam? Artie? Mike? Where are my boys? Get up here!” Puck says from the stage. “Let’s show Indiana what a party really looks like!”

“Oh, no,” Kurt says with a laugh. “What could go wrong?” He doesn’t sound upset, not really, more amused than anything, and while Blaine knows Kurt’s sharp edges will always be a part of him he loves being able to be sure of his calm center, too. He doesn’t know if he’s changed or Kurt has - or probably both - but he can’t imagine losing sight for too long of what lies beneath Kurt’s opinions anymore.

“Maybe we should make some requests,” Blaine says and takes another neat bite of his cake. “Not that they won’t pick good songs, but it is _our_ wedding.”

Kurt smiles over at him, his eyes suddenly soft and warm in a way Blaine has seen in his dreams for years but for a long time - until very recently - not in reality. “It is,” Kurt agrees.

“We could do a duet, too,” Blaine says. “If you wanted.” He’s happy enough to perform, especially with Kurt, but it’s not burning in him the way it usually is. He’s content to be _in_ the moment right now, not just leading it. This moment is so good, after all.

Kurt leans a little closer, his weight still propped against the pillar. “I feel like I should request ‘Teenage Dream.’ I could sing it to you this time.”

Blaine’s cheeks heat, his stomach churning with love and only a tiny bit of shame for what the song’s memory has turned to for them. Their past will never be erased, but mistakes don’t seem to matter so much today.

“But,” Kurt continues, watching him intently, “this isn’t a dream.”

“No.”

“And we aren’t teenagers anymore.” Kurt puts his fork down on his plate, his cake unfinished. “I’ll always be that boy inside, too, you know. The one who fell for you the minute we met and just kept falling.” He tips his head, his smile deep in his eyes. “You’re who I’ve always wanted.” He doesn’t reach for Blaine, doesn’t kiss him, just looks at him, fierce and happy.

Kurt’s so settled, so sure, so _his_. He’s everything Blaine has ever wanted. Not the dream of perfection he once was, but just Kurt, purely himself, his beneath it all. 

“I love you so much, Kurt,” Blaine tells him, his heart so big it hurts in his chest, and he leans in for a kiss as the music strikes up loud behind them.

 

11.

“This whole day has been beautiful, honey,” Carole says to Kurt as they dance slowly and easily around the floor as Mercedes sings.

He smiles down at her, all too aware of Blaine and his mother swaying just a few feet away. His husband and his mother-in-law. His family, legally and truly, just as much family as Carole is. He can’t believe a few years ago he didn’t have any of them at all. “You do know I had very little to do with it. Blaine and I were a very last-minute addition. I wasn’t even the wedding planner.”

“Kurt Hummel, you commanded this army like a general this week when Artie wasn’t watching, and you know it,” Carole says.

He grins a little, because it’s true. He might have bossed a few people around for Brittany’s sake, but that’s what friends do.

“But that’s not what I meant,” she continues, her eyes soft and sparkling. “I mean your wedding. You and Blaine. It’s been beautiful watching you.”

Kurt looks over at Blaine, who catches his eyes over his mother’s shoulder and gives him such a dreamy, open smile that Kurt’s heart falls even more for him, helplessly besotted by the warmth and joy Blaine brings to everything in his life and most of all to Kurt.

Carole laughs and says, “Yes, just like that.”

“Thank you,” he tells her, so grateful it is almost painful. Grateful for her, grateful for Blaine, grateful for this day and this chance and this future.

“May I cut in?” his dad’s voice comes from beside him.

Kurt looks up in surprise and lets go of Carole’s hands. He can find himself another partner, and maybe he can dance with Carole again later. “Of course,” he says and steps back, but instead of his dad sweeping Carole up into the dance he holds out his hands to Kurt, instead.

“Come on,” his dad says. “Why should the moms get all the fun? Dance with your old man.” He wiggles his fingers at him.

Carole clutches her hands together with teary delight, and Kurt feels his heart expand that much further, because he knows not every gay kid ends up with a family who loves him like his does. His family might be missing people who can’t be replaced - his mother, Finn, holes in the world that will never be filled - but he feels so lucky to have what he has. Understanding, acceptance, love. It’s everything.

He is so _lucky_.

Kurt steps into his father’s arms with a smile and a laugh - and a few tears he doesn’t let fall - and sees Blaine beaming at them.

“Thanks, Dad,” Kurt says as his father tries awkwardly to follow the beat.

“Wait to thank me ‘til we get through this without me stepping on your toes,” his father says. “You should warn Blaine. He’s next.”

Kurt just grins, shakes his head, and holds onto his father. He is not going to cry. He’s going to smile through every minute.

He couldn’t have imagined when he was that young, scared, closeted boy who was terrified of his dad hating him just how happy he could be to be himself, but it was worth every minute of struggling through that shame, fear, and loneliness to get what he has now.

 

12.

There is a moment in the middle of the dance floor - later, when the men have all left their jackets at their chairs, the women have all kicked off their shoes, and some of the older guests have already said their goodbyes - when Blaine looks up over Tina’s shoulder as he spins her out to the end of his arm and catches sight of Kurt’s smile, a bright beacon over the top of Rachel’s head across the floor, the shimmy of his shoulders a joyful twist Blaine knows all too well.

Blaine feels something deep and serious in his gut tug toward Kurt, ache for him, yearn to reach for him and be near him.

They got _married_ today. That’s his _husband_.

He wants to be _with_ him right now, alone with him, not because he needs to have sex with him this minute but because he needs them to be together. He needs to breathe the same air as Kurt, hear his voice, hold his hands, smell his hair, and _be_ with him in a space that’s all their own.

He needs this amazing day of magic and spectacle to come back into focus and be grounded once more in the quiet, private love in Kurt’s face. His husband’s face.

Tina laughs up at Blaine as she spins back in, her loosening tendrils of hair floating around her shoulders and her eyes sparkling, and the moment of need for Blaine slips away.

For a while, anyway.

Right now, it’s time to dance with all of his friends, smile until his face hurts, and get lost in the music and love all around him.

But soon... soon, Blaine knows with another glance across the dance floor, he is going to need to peel Kurt away from Rachel, pair Tina off with someone else, and go be alone with his husband at last.

 

13.

Finally, long after the sun has set, Kurt and Blaine say goodbye to their parents and their friends and then slip out of the reception without much of a fuss. The party will go on without them, but it’s been a long and unexpectedly emotional day, and when Blaine had appeared by Kurt’s side with a question on his face, Kurt had been more than happy to get ready to go.

They gather their belongings from the dressing rooms, and when they’re back out in the dark they pause for a moment, hand in hand, and look back at the barn. It’s full of life and love, sparkling lights and loud music, and Kurt finds himself shaking his head at it in wonder. It looks like a dream from even this far away, but he knows it’s one of the most real days he’ll ever have in his life.

“When I woke up this morning,” he says, feeling exhausted and exhilarated at once, “this isn’t at all how I thought today would go.”

Blaine squeezes his hand but doesn’t reply, just looks at the barn with thousands of tiny white lights illuminating his handsome, contemplative face. He looks captivating, but then to Kurt he always does.

“I’m not complaining,” Kurt adds, just to be clear. He knows sometimes Blaine needs to hear the words, and he hasn’t quite figured out yet when that is. He will, though. They’ll figure it out together.

Blaine turns toward him, and his smile grows wide and easy. “Not at all,” he says, and that little knot of worry in Kurt’s heart flies free again.

They _will_ figure it out, he knows with absolute sureness.

“So,” Kurt says as they start to walk toward Blaine’s car, their hands still linked, “what are we going to do about the tradition of carrying the bride over the threshold on the wedding night? Are we supposed to make two trips to carry each other? I feel like that’s a recipe for someone’s head to get bumped on the door jamb.”

“We could just walk through it together,” Blaine replies with a laugh.

Kurt grins at him, but before he can reply a figure looms out of the darkness in front of them. He and Blaine stop short, but he’s proud of the fact that neither of them actually squeaks in surprise.

“Klaine,” Sue says.

Blaine’s hand tightens on Kurt’s as Kurt warily says, “Sue.”

“Congratulations on finally seeing the light and giving all of us the happy ending for your relationship we so clearly deserved,” she tells them.

“Um...” Blaine says with a frown, and Kurt just shakes his head. There’s no point in interrupting her. They just have endure whatever it is she has to say.

Sue pulls a little plastic card out of the pocket of her jacket and continues. “In honor of your impromptu but long-overdue gay nuptials and as an apology for the minor kidnapping I may have orchestrated in an attempt to get you to this point, I have taken the liberty of upgrading your hotel room to something more suitable both for the occasion and for the multiple rounds of celebratory wedding night sodomy you will undoubtedly now be rushing off to engage in, the supplies for which I have also helpfully provided in multiple flavors and textures for his and/or his pleasure.”

As they gape at her, speechless, she nods at them both, then reaches out to tuck the hotel key card into Kurt’s breast pocket. “You’re welcome.”

With that, she gives them another odd little bob of her head and vanishes back into the darkness.

They stand there for a moment, just breathing, and Kurt wonders if it’s good that he doesn’t believe in past lives, because he’d hate to have to think about what horrible things he would have had to have done to be saddled with Sue Sylvester now.

Finally his breath bursts out of him in a laugh. “This has been the craziest day,” he says, shaking his head as they start walking again.

His hand firmly anchored in Kurt’s, Blaine smiles over at him, quietly radiant with love, and says, “But the best day.”

Kurt smiles back, smiles at the love of his life, his _husband_ , and nods in helpless agreement.

“The best,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> I am spoiler-free! Please don't tell me anything about the rest of the series! Thank you!


End file.
